Making memories

Thursday, April 19, 2012

I think it's funny that as moms, we sometimes go all out to make a moment or an event memorable for our kids. However, as the years pass and my girls share their memories, it's not quite the memory I was envisioning them treasuring forever in their minds. In fact, the memories they choose to keep for eternity, we could have made at home not costing a dime.

For instance, we took the girls to Disney World about three years ago and it was, by far, the best vacation they've been on in their short life thus far. It was their ultimate dream to go to Disney World, as it is most little girls and so we finally gave in and took them on a weeklong Florida adventure. Since these kinds of trips aren't common in our house, we tried to make sure we fit in all there was to do in one week, not knowing how soon we'd ever be back. If I added correctly, I think we must have spent around 2 million dollars alone on admission tickets to all the famous parks and sights, not to mention the $4 million on food and souvenirs.

Anyways, my point is, one would think that my girls would reminisce about the beautiful amusement parks, the super fun rides or the parades. Or perhaps, they'd recall all the cool, new animals they got to view for the first time or maybe the amazing theme restaurants? Nope. They remember that we ordered pizza at 1:00 in the morning because our plane got in so late and we hadn't had dinner. They remember that some pilot was writing smoke messages in the sky with his plane one day when they were swimming in our resort pool. They remember the weird guy that was standing in line with us on one of the rides and even how he was dressed.

For crying out loud, I could have made those memories for them right here at home and not had to pay a ten million dollars and fly across the country. Don't get me wrong, I know they have other memories of that trip cause they absolutely loved it and can't wait to go back, but every time we talk about it, someone will inevitably say, "You remember that time when we ate pizza at one in the morning and do you remember the scary taxi cab driver that drove us to our hotel??"

There's no mention of the beautifully decorated Disney streets or the fireworks show or how they witnessed Tinker Bell, herself, flying from the castle. Tinker Bell for Pete's sake, who doesn't wanna remember that?? They don't ever mention the palm trees or the flowers, not even the rain showers every afternoon. However, they do remember my middle daughter getting lost in Disney World, though, and can recite every detail of that horror story.

It's just odd, I guess. You never know what your kids are going remember from something and lock it in for life. Like, I swear my 9 year old reminds me on a yearly basis about the time, when she was 5 years old and I hit her in the mouth with a softball while teaching her to play catch. She doesn't recall all the thousands of card games and board games I played with her, or jumped on the tramp with her or took her swimming, just that one time I played catch with her and hit her in the mouth.

Oh well, one thing I've learned for certain, that it's not how much money I spend on them or how fancy of a place I take them to, it's the little things that they remember forever. It's not all bad things, its sometimes good things, small little things I've done that I didn't think twice about, that they remember the most.

I just never know what it's going to be but it always surprises me what they come up with.